This study was conducted to look into state-owned ICT institutions. The emphasis was on devising a strategic management framework that would be robust and agile, thereby enabling government companies within the ICT sector to rapidly respond to changes in the market and to also enable them to forecast and plan for the future in respect of technology. The main objective of the study was to derive an ICT strategic management framework for the rapid technological evolution of state-owned companies. Further, the study aimed to provide a critical exposition of the factors that affect company ICT strategies; assess the impact of technological changes on company ICT strategies; and propose guidelines on keeping companies‘ ICT strategies responsive to rapid technological changes. Through the literature review as well as an empirical study, common variables and factors that affect a company‘s ICT strategy and its response to technology changes were explored and guidelines were compiled into a framework that will assist SOEs (state-owned enterprises). Through a literature study of available material on the world‘s telecommunication trends and developments in developed nations, some key observations were recorded such as the concept of convergence, which in the main is driven by consumers‘ need for mobility and flexibility, as well as applications with high capacity demands on the one hand and the need for companies and telecommunications operators to be more efficient on the other. Convergence delivers this benefit of efficiency within the market and stimulates competition. Innovation and creativity continue to be the driving force behind the technological evolutions in the ICT sector. The study also considered how both the PEST model and Porter‘s five forces affect these companies. Issues such as the legislative and policy framework of the ICT industry in South Africa were looked at, with emphasis on how they affect ICT parastatals. The study ended with key recommendations and guidelines summed up into a comprehensive framework. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The strategy process is viewed as a result of deliberate and emergent events, affected from different factors. Existing research in strategy making and implementation has suggested different micro-level factors affecting strategic decision making, mainly through research in single companies. Some factors include cognition, organisational learning and the roles of the top managers. This thesis attempts to gain a better understanding of the strategic decision making process through the investigation of the impact of middle managers' politics in the strategy process within international partnerships of the high tech sector. An abductive research approach is used, to investigate four case studies, combining different qualitative research methods. The research focuses on the formal and informal activities that middle managers engage in, in order to affect strategic decisions before, during and after these are made, through the different phases of a partnership. The organisational context of the study, this being international partnerships, enables the investigation of 35 decisions, 15 of which are in intra-organisational level, and 20 in inter-organisational. Findings suggest that the impact of political activity, between individual employees and groups of them in the intra-organisational environment, can be either integrative or fractious. This however appears to depend on three different factors: firstly, the tactics being applied during the decision making period; secondly, the phase of the partnership in which these decisions are being made; thirdly, the level of autonomy that middle managers enjoy during the formal and informal communications surrounding the decision making process. This study contributes in the strategy area as it suggests a coherent framework on investigating the causes and impact of political processes in organisations. Rather than using the criticised as abstract notions of 'positive/negative' impact of politics, it focuses on the way they integrate or fragment decision makers. This impact however appears to depend on the three aforementioned factors. The study contributes in strategy research, as it stretches the need for inquiry in the emerging strategic relationships area, by focusing on firm partnerships. Moreover, it stretches the need for abductive approaches, having as a departing point existing theoretical suggestions, in order to test theories and irregularities, and offer alternative explanations. The study concludes by suggesting two different frameworks to investigate the middle manager politics in firm partnerships, offering a meticulous way in investigating them through a processual approach.

<p>This research links the relationship among entrepreneurial traits, business strategies and the success of the firm. Such relationship presents that the person who stands behind the success of SME is entrepreneur. Entrepreneur plays an important role in SME as a key player to control the direction of the SME. Also, the business strategies used by the entrepreneur can build competitive advantage for the firm. This research focuses on network and innovation strategies as the main strategies and presents the entrepreneurial characters that are important for utilizing these two strategies effectively. Network strategy will be efficiently used by the person who possesses the extraversion trait with social and team characters while innovation strategy will be efficiently used by the person who possesses the openness to experience trait with creativity and advantage characters.</p>

This thesis is oriented on communication strategy of a french hotel Saint Eloi. The goal of this thesis is to provide a reader with a complex view of the Saint Eloi's products and to show him the positive and negative points of communication strategy. The results of this thesis is a creation of a new communication strategy that could help the hotel to restrain in the competitive area and become more popular by using the new communication possibilities.

The saturation of Western markets, strong and predatory competition, and the end of supranational state units, all these factors have contributed to eminent interest of multinational companies in the newly created markets of the Commonwealth of Independent States. For that reason, the thesis discusses marketing theories as well as a wide range of marketing strategies and tools tailored to local specific cosmetics markets based on executed situation analysis.

Background: As the world is moving from an industrial to a digital one an increasingly important factor for companies has become their digital transformation. This, Industry 4.0, has brought forward a new set of challenges but conventional strategy-making has not been able to keep up with them, whilst considering that change, in practice, is difficult to implement. The strategy execution for digital transformation has therefore become increasingly important but the challenges faced has not been researched to a sufficient degree. Research question: What are the main challenges with strategy execution during a digital transformation process and how can they be managed? Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to find and describe the main challenges with strategy execution for digital transformation that has been experienced and or perceived by practitioners working in companies that are a part of a concern. These findings will be conceptualised out of which guiding principles will be created and presented.    Method: In this study a qualitative method has been used together with an abductive approach to reasoning. Semi-structured interviews have been performed with eight respondents chosen by a strategic selection for their knowledge about the studied field. Theoretical frame of reference: Theories about strategy execution, change-management, what a digital transformation is, and how it evolves as well as the activity-based process model have been put forward. Within digital transformation some earlier seen challenges that has been a basis for this research are discussed. Conclusions: An overall conclusion that can be drawn from the analysis is that the primary areas that have been looked at, i.e. strategy development; strategy execution and digital transformation, in themselves create challenges. Whether they are correlated with each other or would exist no matter the other factors cannot be discerned from the findings of this thesis, resulting in the fact that the results of the analysis while able to give a foundation and interpretive thoughts, are, in their nature, uncertain. This would mean that albeit an answer to the research question can be presented by the conceptualisation and guiding principles they should not be seen as general for any given population but rather as a description and analysis of the studied population.

A year long learning strategy course was designed and embedded in a Year 8 science curriculum. The Science Learning Strategy (SLS) program aimed to improve student ability to apply learning strategies to science, increase student achievement in science and to augment students' feelings of control over their science learning, so that their perceived competence was maximised. Achievement of these aims was monitored by collecting perceptions from students, parents and the teacher/researcher via a range of devices including questionnaires, work samples and interviews. The program overall was regarded as successfully achieving all three aims by 22 of the 24 students. The other two students found that only some aspects of the course were helpful, and felt they had learned little from the program. Thirty three percent of parents attributed positive changes in their daughter's study and learning strategies to participation in the SLS program (the remainder were unsure, or did not know of any changes). In relation to perception of academic performance, 38% of the parents interviewed believed that the SLS had a positive effect on their daughter's achievement in science. Several of these parents reported very positive effects on performance. The remainder were not sure or did not know if there had been any positive effects. No parents mentioned that the SLS program had caused a drop in science performance. The proportion of parents believing their daughters blamed disappointing results on factors they couldn't control dropped from 45% at the start of the year, to 22% by the end of the SLS program. After the intervention, 33% of parents reported that their daughters had come to believe that their science performance was affected by many factors, most of which they could control. / The teacher/researcher observed strong improvement in student ability to apply learning strategies to science as a result of participation in the program. Students were also observed by the teacher/researcher, to have been assisted by the intervention to realise that their science performance was governed not only by their natural ability, but also by factors such as studying behaviour and affective influences. In particular, the program appeared to the teacher/researcher to have helped students realise that they had control over their use of learning strategies, and that this control could influence their science performance. However, the teacher/researcher found that no statistically significant changes in science achievement resulted from student participation in the SLS course. The other objective of the research was to investigate the extent to which learning strategy education was valued and implemented by Western Australian science teachers. The 218 returned surveys revealed that most respondents recognised the need to teach these skills during science lessons. Seventy six percent of respondents considered the delivery of learning strategy instruction in the lower school science classroom to be as important, or more important, than teaching subject processes and content. Sixty seven percent recognised that improving study strategies can improve confidence and/or motivation. / Many teachers, however, had not been able to convert these views into consistent classroom practice. A moderate proportion of teachers reported teaching a variety of learning strategies; 74% of the respondents agreed that learning strategy instruction could improve performance in science. Only one teacher specifically mentioned incorporating the teaching of learning strategies with instruction in science process and content. As a future outcome of this project, the teacher/researcher will encourage other teachers to embed learning strategy instruction within the science curriculum, so that their students come to feel more in control of their learning and can learn more effectively.

<p>Global financial crisis, triggered by the U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis, is now the hot issue all over the world. The crisis has already slowed down the world economy and brought great shocks to almost every industry. For B2C companies all over the world, the crisis is more of an opportunity than a threat and therefore these companies should use marketing techniques to further boost their revenue and profit.</p><p>In view of this situation, this thesis is dedicated to discuss the price and promotion strategies used by B2C companies during the crisis. Through case studies of four B2C companies, that is, TaoBao.com, DangDang.com, EBay.com and Amazon.com, we conclude that discount, pricing leadership and penetration pricing are the universal price strategies used, while they also use nearly similar promotion strategies: advertising, public relation and sales promotion. Considering the current crisis, we also think that current price and promotion strategies are insufficient in face of global financial crisis in that they are not flexible enough to adapt themselves to the changing consumer behaviors and economic surroundings. Consequently, to seek to address these problems, we here bring forward three suggestions: strengthened segment-based pricing Strategy, innovative promotion strategy and flexible marketing mix.</p>

Global financial crisis, triggered by the U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis, is now the hot issue all over the world. The crisis has already slowed down the world economy and brought great shocks to almost every industry. For B2C companies all over the world, the crisis is more of an opportunity than a threat and therefore these companies should use marketing techniques to further boost their revenue and profit. In view of this situation, this thesis is dedicated to discuss the price and promotion strategies used by B2C companies during the crisis. Through case studies of four B2C companies, that is, TaoBao.com, DangDang.com, EBay.com and Amazon.com, we conclude that discount, pricing leadership and penetration pricing are the universal price strategies used, while they also use nearly similar promotion strategies: advertising, public relation and sales promotion. Considering the current crisis, we also think that current price and promotion strategies are insufficient in face of global financial crisis in that they are not flexible enough to adapt themselves to the changing consumer behaviors and economic surroundings. Consequently, to seek to address these problems, we here bring forward three suggestions: strengthened segment-based pricing Strategy, innovative promotion strategy and flexible marketing mix.

This research links the relationship among entrepreneurial traits, business strategies and the success of the firm. Such relationship presents that the person who stands behind the success of SME is entrepreneur. Entrepreneur plays an important role in SME as a key player to control the direction of the SME. Also, the business strategies used by the entrepreneur can build competitive advantage for the firm. This research focuses on network and innovation strategies as the main strategies and presents the entrepreneurial characters that are important for utilizing these two strategies effectively. Network strategy will be efficiently used by the person who possesses the extraversion trait with social and team characters while innovation strategy will be efficiently used by the person who possesses the openness to experience trait with creativity and advantage characters.